Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, for coming to the House to respond to this Adjournment matter on the need for the Minister for Education and Skills to provide enhanced safety measures for pupils of schools accessed by roads not taken in charge by local authorities.

This is an issue prevalent across the country, particularly at many of the new schools built over the past number of years. An example in this regard is Skerries Educate Together national school, on which I will provide some background. The school opened in 1 September 2008 with 34 pupils enrolled. There are now 234 pupils attending the school and it is expected that by 2014 there will be 460 pupils enrolled at the school. The school serves the greater Skerries-Balbriggan-Balrothery-Lusk-Rush area and is a busy school. The Minister of State may be familiar with the Fingal schools model whereby the council sources land from developers, a school is constructed and then passed on to the Department of Education and Skills, which has been very successful.

While Skerries Educate Together is going well, there is a major road safety issue at the school. The school has requested on a number of occasions of Fingal County Council that a traffic warden and fully accessible crossing point, similar to those provided at other schools, be provided at the school. The school caters for children from five years upwards. However, the council response has been that this location was examined on a number of occasions and it was noted that the area immediately adjacent to the school is in private ownership and the school warden service is not provided by the council on private lands. I hope we will not have to wait for a tragic accident at the school before this matter is dealt with.

The principal and board of management at the school have been in contact with the developer of the adjacent site, who, with the council, has been endeavouring to have the road taken in charge. I will provide my notes on this to the Minister of State later. I am using Skerries Educate Together as an example of similar situations at other schools around the country. The council will not even have proper road markings put in place around the school. The owner of the road cannot understand the reason the council will not take it in charge. The school now finds itself in the position of being unable to provide for the safety of its pupils due to circumstances beyond its control. It is not in a position to compel the council to take the road in charge. The matter is now left up in the air. While the school fund-raised to pay for road markings, it is unable to have this done because the work is not covered by the insurance of the owner of the road.

In the local authority's view, this is not its problem. I have written to the Department, which has stated that it cannot do anything even though the issue is one of safety of pupils at school. I have given the example of Skerries Educate Together national school. As I said, there are other schools in similar situations. I believe a directive on this matter needs to issue from either the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or the Department of Education and Skills. Surely the safety of school children is paramount and the council should be directed to take the road in charge, perhaps by way of a caretaker's agreement initially while the outstanding issues are being dealt with, and to appoint a school warden and put in place a crossing point to ensure the safety of the children.

I hope I have adequately outlined the issue which is prevalent in Skerries and at many other schools across the country. I look forward to hearing the Minister of State's response.